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 Posted: Sun Jan 01, 2012 7:33 pm
The bleeding had not ebbed much as he wandered down the street. Since powering down, the injury had made itself much more pronounced, and he found it was a lot harder to block out the pain without his boost of skills. But he hadn't wanted anyone following his energy signature, and had powered down only when he was sure he was alone. Then he began walking to the most sensible place he could, when clinging to a bleeding gun shot wound.
The hospital had not occurred to him readily: Zinkenite had been right, it wasn't smart for him to go there. But he didn't want to go home, either, and try to explain himself to his son. So he did the next logical thing, which was far from rational at all.
Leaning on the doorframe to the house, he pressed the bell with a bloody finger, having used both hands to hold the cloth to his side. It was a piece of the General King's costume, though it was hardly recognizable as such now, the cloud patterns lost under the blood.
"Kyndall," he called, grimacing, "Kyndall, it's Tony." It was late, very late, and he wondered if she was out patrolling, or worse, asleep.
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Posted: Sun Jan 01, 2012 8:01 pm
Kyndall was asleep, thankfully, but as she tended to do at night she got up to check on Harmony who lay sleeping in her bed. She heard the bell, looking to Harm immediately, who didn't seem to wake up before moving downstairs to check on who it was. She heard Tony's voice and how strained it sounded and started rushing toward the door. She pulled it open quickly. If he was here and sounding like that it couldn't be very good. Her heart started to pound with fear.
The sight she was greeted with was far from the usual librarian she knew and loved. He was pale and his hands bloody, the doorbell slick with the same blood. The sleep that remained fled quickly as she surveyed him wondering why the hell he was here and not at the hospital. Her violet eyes widened and moved to help him inside, not even caring about how she was dressed or how she intended to help him.
"My,God, what happened?"
Kyndall would move mountains for him if only he'd ask. Without thinking she helped him upstairs to her room which had a bathroom close by and laid him on her bed with a towel under him. She didn't have much hope of keeping the sheets clean but she wasn't thinking clearly, either. She lifted his shirt and finally got a good look at the bullet hole for the first time, wondering at it. She frowned.
"Tony, what have you done?" Concern was evident in her voice and in her eyes.
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Posted: Sun Jan 01, 2012 8:16 pm
"I-I'm fine," Tony stammered, at her accusation. He moved with her inside, glancing behind him before she closed the door. He stumbled and hesitated in her entryway. He didn't want to get blood on her floor.
He looked at her and saw the fear that was clear in her eyes. Swallowing hard, he shook his head quickly in an effort to comfort her.
She had helped him into the bedroom and onto her bed before he could protest. He made a sound of stifled pain, gripping his side. It was a shallow wound, the bullet slowed by crashing through armor and chain mail, but there was still a bullet in his side that he needed to get out. Or rather, needed help to do so.
He felt guilty even thinking about asking Kyndall.
"I was on patrol," he explained, grimacing, "there were some thugs, hurting a woman. I don't know what they were doing. well." He could guess. "I stepped in to stop them... turns out Camelot has a weakness to bullets." He spoke very softly, knowing Harmony was probably in the house somewhere.
He chewed on his lower lip, green eyes sharp with pain.
"I... I think the bullet is still there..."
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Posted: Tue Jan 03, 2012 3:02 pm
"You're kidding."
Of course he wasn't but it was the first thing that sprang to her surprised lips. She looked over her wounded friend and thanked God for his intricate metal armor or else he probably wouldn’t have made it to her house. She didn’t know about Zinkenite helping him before hand. She just wondered why he hadn’t gone to a hospital. Getting crossed in a random shooting could be easily explained, couldn’t it? In this day and age certainly.
Of everything he could have asked her, this was by far the worst of it. When she made the vow to help him however she could she had no idea it included duties like this. If she had…she still would have made the vow. What he’d done for her went above and beyond a flesh wound. She was just so afraid of hurting him! She went to the bathroom and grabbed another towel and some gauze and alcohol. From downstairs she grabbed some scotch, taking to the habit of keeping some on hand for him now, and handed him that bottle.
The unspoken command was for him to drink enough to numb the pain before she started flushing, cleasing, and then digging around in the hole in his side to try and pull out the bullet. None of those things would be particularly pleasant she imagined. She went and washed her hands thoroughly before bending over him and flushing the wound with water so see could see better. She put as much light on him as possible to aid being able to see and thought she saw the bullet stuck inside. At least it wouldn’t do any lasting damage.
“Are you ready?”
She sincerely hoped so, pushing on his side to hopefully draw the bullet up within closer reach with her fingers.
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Posted: Fri Jan 06, 2012 12:30 pm
"Yes, haha, this is just really good stage make up," Tony couldn't stop himself from saying, looking at her sharply. He chalked that up to the pain, and shook his head with an apologetic look on his face. He motioned to the wound by way of an explanation.
When she returned with the bottle of alcohol, the looked at it and almost laughed. It was a very surreal moment, he realized, like something out of someone else's life. But not a librarian. He was no action hero, no super spy or government agent. He was just a man who shelved books.
And was also a knight.
He sighed and drank from the bottle, telling himself he'd have to replace it. He also wondered why he always ended up drunk when they hung out. Not that this was his choice, and it certainly was not as fun as it had been before.
"I'm ready," he said, though the pressure on his side made him cry out in pain. He took a few more heavy swigs of scotch for good measure. "Please hurry."
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Posted: Sat Jan 07, 2012 9:52 pm
She scoffed at his response, feeling momentarily annoyed more than freaked out and the distraction was good. Her belly felt tied in knots and she'd probably hate him for days after this and didn't think of the irony of him getting very drunk very quickly with the scotch she handed him. She was amazed Harmony hadn't knocked but then again perhaps she assumed her mother was doing something else (though she didn't know how the two sounds could be mistaken) and chose to ignore it.
Not that she ever would do that with her daughter home.
Kyndall took a swig herself to steady her own nerves and stuck her finger into the hole, wriggling it in much to her own disgust to try and find the bullet. It wasn't hard. Her fingertip brushed it and she moved to try and get under it, knowing what sort of agony she had to be putting Tony into to do it. She almost passed out from the fresh blood that welled up from the wound and she lost all visibility. She could only feel now as the bullet was wedged under her finger. She dragged it up and out in one last burst of movement, hoping after that the pain would subside.
She dropped the metal thing and immediately grabbed the bottle to take another one or two swigs from within. She was physically shaking beside him and sank onto the bed next to him to deal with what she'd done for a second. It didn't seem real to be doing this sort of thing to her friend. But she also couldn't let him bleed to death, either. She moved to clean out the wound, flushing it with water and dabbing alcohol around and just inside it. She knew before she said anything that she'd have to sew him closed and did not relish the idea.
"Tony, I need to go get a needle and thread."
As if the there needed to be more terror in her night.
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Posted: Sun Jan 08, 2012 10:42 pm
"You need to poke at it more?" Tony asked blearily, more from pain than from the alcohol. He was having a hard time being drunk when he was in such pain. It was very good at sobering him up. Still, he was definitely out of it, groaning softly and all but whimpering as he lay there after she had managed to get the bullet out of him.
Maybe he should have go to the hospital. He would have had much more effective pain killers.
He cried out in pain as she cleaned the wound, shutting his eyes tightly and shaking his head. "I don't think I want you to get a needle or a thread at this point. Can't you just bind it?"
He looked at her and saw the fear in her expression. She was upset, he realized, and it was because he had made her tend to him like this. Here he was, making her dig around in his side, cause him pain. He hadn't asked her if he could just come over when he was injured. What was he thinking, coming here? He trusted her, yes, but he had no right to force her to do anything like this.
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Posted: Mon Jan 09, 2012 5:50 pm
"It's a hole, Tony." she returned dryly, already shaken enough to want to argue. "I could bind it but it would still be a hole and would still bleed."
She knew he was in pain and her heart was sick for it but a job half done might as well not be done at all. Perhaps it was unfair of him to come to her like this but he had and now she was obligated to help because of the love she bore him and the promise she made. She wasn't going to fold because it was hard. She was no medic and hadn't counted the cost like this when she thought about being a knight. Worse still, this injury hadn't had anything to do with the war but she meant to help however she could no matter how uncomfortable it made her.
And she certainly couldn't drink anymore.
She moved to get a needle and thread from a nearby sewing kit she kept in house for costumes and things. She shuddered but at least this action she was more familiar with and it would be less painful. She hoped. Encouraging his use of the bottle of scotch again she threaded the slim needle and curved it slightly to be able to drag both sides together properly. She'd seen enough medical movies and dramas to know that was the proper thing to do.
"I'm sorry, Tony."
And she was but it was made worse when she pushed the needle into his skin and drug the thread through until the knot stopped, sticking out. She moved through the other side, pulling the hole closed. She repeated the process as quickly and efficiently as she could until she was done, the thread slick with blood but the wound was closed now and the bleeding had slowed significantly. She disinfected the outside again just to be safe and bound the wound.
Immediately upon completion she collapsed onto the bed next to him, leaving things as they lay, and curled up against him thoroughly traumatized. She put her arms around him and shook a little while, not saying much of anything or thinking about how much he might not want her clinging to him like this, even if it was on his good side.
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Posted: Mon Jan 09, 2012 6:03 pm
"You and your sense making," Tony grumbled petulantly. He sighed, though, the more conscious part of his mind telling him that it was for the best and he needed to behave himself. She was taking a lot of strain, a lot of responsibility, playing his doctor. It was not fair for him to make it harder on her.
He had already decided it was not fair of him to have even shown up. At this point it was just mean to make it even worse.
He drank as much as he could, groaning and burying his face in the closest pillow. He murmured something into it at her apology, perhaps a reassurance, but it was lost in slurs and the way the feathers muffled any sound he made. Except his pained yell as she stitched the wound closed. He stopped protesting before she was done, though. Maybe it was shock or just the alcohol, but he was not feeling as much pain as he had been.
He was exhausted, and as she curled against him he put his arm around her, groaning. He closed his eyes and drifted in and out of consciousness and sleep, straddling that thin line and finding rest regardless. He fell to sleep fully a short time later, even snoring softly and holding her to him. It wasn't the most comfortable he had ever been, the two of them strewn across the bed where they had fallen, but he certainly couldn't complain.
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